OBX, NC (04-20-13)

Before we left Asheville, we needed to look at a map and figure out where we wanted to head next.  Our options were to stay along the Blue Ridge, or head for the coastal area. 
Our next bookend ( hard reservation) is in D.C., so we'd eventually need to head to the coast anyway- since the weather isn't conducive to hiking in the higher elevations of the mountains, we decided to head to the OBX,  (short for Outer Banks) and the town of Hatteras, NC.

the wind blows the tops off the dunes and onto the road

Hatteras is South of Kitty Hawk, and let me tell you, after only one day here, we understand why the Wright Brothers came to this area to fly their plane.  The wind is incessant!  Oh, and with temps in the 50s, 30-40 mph winds, and rain, the weather hasn't really been an improvement over the mountain weather.

This area of the coast is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, so it made sense to pay a visit to the museum named The Graveyard of the Atlantic.  The price was right for this little museum (free) because although it had some interesting information, it was presented in a disjointed way. 

There have been hundreds of shipwrecks off the coast of North Carolina, in large part due to Shoaling and shifting of the ocean floor. To save lives after a ship has been wrecked along the coast, Life Saving Stations were set up along the North Carolina coastline.

The  U.S. Lifesaving Service was first started in Massachusetts in 1787, and consisted of huts along the Mass. coast to provide shelter for shipwrecked mariners. In 1807, William Nantucket was commissioned to build the first life saving boat, which could be launched from shore. That system was also used in North Carolina, and by 1874, seven shelters had been built along the coastline here.  The service remained in place until 1915 when the Revenue Cutter Service was merged with the Lifesaving Service to create the U.S. Coast Guard.

There are several well known towns here in the Outer Banks.  One of them is Rodanthe, home to a herd of wild horses known as the Banker ponies.  I was hoping for a glimpse, but it turns out the horses don't run along the road.  Go figure.  In fact, to see them in their element, you need to pretty much take a tour, and go four wheeling.  I've seen wild horses before, so we passed on that excursion.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

One of the other famous towns is Kitty Hawk, where, in December of 1903, the Wright brothers were the first to fly a motor driven airplane. 

They flew 4 flights that first day- the first one lasted 12 seconds and went a distance of 120 feet, and the 4th one lasted 59 seconds and flew a distance of 852 feet. The rock in the foreground represents where the plane took off from, and the white rocks in the distance are where they touched down again.  You can barely see the marker for the 4th flight, way off in the distance.

The brothers regularly enlisted the aid of off duty Life Saving crew members to help them move the planes around, etc.  and one of them was in charge of taking pictures of the actual flights on that first day.

On the walls inside the museum were paintings of individuals who had a major impact on flying, or were the first to do something. Some of the names were very recognizable and some were not:

George Bush- first military flyer to become President,     

Clyde Cessna-Aviation Pioneer,

Igor Sikorsky- first to build and fly a helicopter in the western hemisphere,

Albert Berry- first man to parachute from a plane,

Yuri Gagarin- first man to orbit the earth.

The one that I was surprised to see on the wall was Herbert Kelleher- founder of Southwest Airlines. He started the company in 1971 with three planes, and the company has grown to a fleet of over 600 planes flying 3400 routes.  The airline has never had an in-flight fatality, has been profitable for 40 consecutive years and has never furloughed any employees.

“We Interrupt This Blog…” (04-19-13)

  The last few days have been difficult for a lot of people and devastating for others.  On Monday April 15, two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  Most people know that I grew up in a suburb of Boston, where Patriot’s Day is an extremely important holiday, and the marathon is considered to be one of the first signs of spring.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that the whole country didn’t celebrate Patriot’s Day as a holiday!

Like many people, I’ve been following the news, watching the search for the culprits, listening to reports about the victims, and waiting for new details on an hourly basis.  I guess our lack of privacy in this modern world actually helped lead to a resolution of the situation. The subjects were videotaped, showed up on multiple surveillance cameras, and police asked for any and all witness’s digital pictures that might show something of value.  Within a day or so, we knew what these two guys-brothers- looked like.

Throughout this ordeal, my Facebook page has been littered with “Boston Strong” pictures and messages of solidarity.  The New York baseball fans sang the Fenway theme song “Sweet Caroline” at the Yankees game. 

At the Boston Bruins game, when Rene Rancourt started singing his usual rendition of our National Anthem, the sound of his voice was drowned out by the singing from the Boston fans. He shut off his microphone and turned it over to the crowd.  An amazing moment.










Last night, after a police chase and firefight, one of the two suspects was killed, and the second on was on the run.  He ran to the town of Watertown, a town I know very well.  I have had friends from there, my brother used to live there, and I have shopped many times at the Arsenal Mall, which was on the edge of the 20 block police perimeter.

empty streets of Boston

It is amazing to me that Massachusetts police and FBI were so committed to catching this guy that they essentially shut down the city of Boston and many of its suburbs, to cut off his escape routes. No school in session, no busses running, no mass transit, no trains, and no taxis were on duty.  Businesses were asked to stay closed and citizens were asked to stay in their homes and lock the doors.  Absolutely unprecedented. My son lives in one of the towns that was in “lock down” mode.

So today, even if I had wanted to go out and explore, I felt glued to the TV as the more than 9000 police officers held a perimeter while conducting a house by house search.  In fact, I installed a police scanner app on my ipad so I could listen to what was happening, as it was happening, even before the media reported on it.  I am exhausted, and I wasn’t even there! I had the scanner on one Apple product, and the map on the other, so I could track the movements of the police. 

Early this evening, after completing the 20 block search and finding no one, the police were getting ready to close that particular operation when they received a call from a local resident who noticed blood on the tarp covering the boat in his back yard. Soon after confirming that he was indeed hiding in the boat, “suspect #2” was apprehended.  And now, like everyone else, I get to relax and breathe a sigh of relief.